


Caring

by distille



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ballroom, Dancing, Dark Academia, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Sexual Tension, Short Stories, angsty, edwardian, please god help me, writing prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distille/pseuds/distille
Summary: Subtle signs. Who knows where I'm going with this? Not even me.





	Caring

The drunkard looks up to the sky and laughs, his milky white eyes blurred.

"Don't you understand?" he cackles, raising his bottle to the heavens as the boy watches, curious and afraid "There is no god! What fool– what idiot is in your church is but a man. Mortal mortal mortal!" he chants until his voice gives way. 

With that, the drunkard begins foolishly dancing around the cobblestone square, and the boy cannot help but be confused by his statement. 

“I do not understand, sire,” he began, wringing his small hands together, his hazelnut eyes narrowing in deep thought. “The village says–”

“Oohhhh,” the drunkard said, waving his finger around at the boy now, the contents of his bottle gone. “People don’t know how to think for themselves in your village, eh? Everybody who goes a toenail out of line gets punished– punished punished punished, and you know what they do after?”

The boy’s eyes become wider. 

“They put you in a sack with rocks and sink you down. If you float, you’re not a sinner! If you sink, then God has let you go.” 

“I don’t want to be stuffed into a rock-sack,” The boy speaks, voice quivering in fear, beads of tears forming at the corners of eyes. “I don’t want to die. I know that dying is empty.”

The drunkard, finally sitting down on a wooden crate and ceasing his dancing, looked at the boy soberly, and said: “Death is not empty. It is beautiful.” 

“Beautiful?” The boy repeats, cocking his round head to the side, sniffing. “How so, drunkard?”

“Because in death… you know the truth. Whether or not you go.” 

“Where?” The boy asks again. 

“Anywhere you want. Men cannot reach the sun because we are men, but angels…” 

The drunk gets up from his wooden crate and begins walking in a straight path towards the harbor, arms swaying steadily at his sides, his bottle lying behind, forgotten. 

When the boy picks up the empty bottle and raises it to his nose, he does not smell the sourness of alcohol, but rather the sweetness of honey.


End file.
